Fox River Trolling Questions for James/PJ

James, Great show on the Fox. I noticed that you were not trolling with your kicker or big motor so I am guessing you were using the bow mount. I am curious how long you actually ran the bow mount and if you have a 36 volt system? Also were you trolling against the current?

I have a 115 and do not have a kicker. With my 24 volt I would guess I would get about 4 to 5 hours at about 1 mph. Also I have an 18 foot aluminum boat.

Thanks for all the good information that you share. You make your followers better fishermen. You should do the show 52 weeks a year!

You should get longer than that if you have good batteries. I troll with my terrova and could go all day at 1-1.3 mph

That is not a very long run time. You might want to look into replacing your batteries with new bigger ones.

I agree with the above… I have to believe you either have some older batteries or your TM is drawing extra amps for some reason…

I have a 36V system and I have got 10 hours on mine charge running 3-4 on the TM speed and still have full charge showing…

In my last boat (new one this season) I had a 36 volt system. Going with the waves I could troll all day at 2 MPH pulling lead and boards.

I believe the hull in a fiberglass boat has less drag than that of a an aluminum boat.

I’m curious about the trolling trees they were using. Anybody know who makes them? Thanks!

turkeynate wrote:

I’m curious about the trolling trees they were using. Anybody know who makes them? Thanks!

Traxtech, however not sure I would go with black….might get a little warm in the summer sun.

Thanks

It also depends on how old your trolling motor is. The new Terovas are much more efficient than the older Power Drives.

To add another element to the answer…. current and wind. The Fox River hasn’t been running as high and fast as it can at times – and that alone surely makes a difference on run times.

Yet another question –

What type of line were you guys running? I’ve always heard that mono can work best for boards, but how do you pull them in depths over 10-12′ then? I find on P4 with the massive number of shad that good ole’ #5 and #7 shad raps work best (not the giant reef runners or other extremely deep diving cranks). There’s no way those are going much over 10′ though with mono at 1-2mph.

In answering my own questions, I usually go with leadcore on P4. I would love to be able to use my boards more often and get a nice 4 line spread going instead of carefully managing 3 running tight together with lead.

as does upstream or down…

buckybadger wrote:

but how do you pull them in depths over 10-12′ then?

Snap weight 20′ in front of the crank. If I remember right, 1 oz adds 33% to the depth curve. Speed dependent like or even more so than lead core.